848 karma · joined April 12, 2012
Australia is more conservative that either New Zealand or Britain, and the previous Labour government (and current opposition) are categorically hopeless.
This is a day after they directed the CEFC to no longer invest in wind generation. The Liberal government are quite open about their desire to shut down the CEFC in its entirety, this is just one step in that direction.
I've lived decades in New Zealand and Britain and moved to Australia a few years ago. It is a wonderful country filled with progressive, intelligent people. I have never experience anything even remotely comparable to the paucity of talent in Australian politics, we are ruled by neanderthals.
The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is a xenophobic mouth-breathing anachronism direct from the 1950s who struggles to form full sentences. He's recently announced a commission into wind turbines and is on the record as saying coal is 'good for humanity'. He's not being ironic or making a clever economic argument, both would be beyond him.
His cabinet are a mixture of the deranged and the spineless, the Treasurer recently agreed that the actions of new mothers claiming paid parental leave was 'basically fraud', called them 'rorters', all the while he claims $270/night in travel allowance to pay rent on a property owned by his wife while he stays in the capital. The arrogance and stupidity of these idiots is unparalleled.
Depressingly, if there were an election tomorrow they would likely win another term. Australia calls itself 'the lucky country', well, it's good to be lucky if you're stupid I guess, but you won't stay rich with this sort of leadership.
Congratulations, you're qualified to work as a contract programmer at a bank in the City of London.
The main advantages as I saw them to contacting were:
- day rate roughly twice what I would have earned salary - honest, mercenary working relationship
What do I mean by funny business? I worked in the City of London for a decade, contracting at some fantastic places and with some great colleagues. I would say I was literally the only person I know (of say, 20 colleagues who's affairs I was aware of) who paid tax the entire time. Most never paid any.
An absolute majority of my colleagues entered into the following arrangement, which will be completely familiar to anyone who worked as a contractor in the UK finance sector between 2000/2010:
1. Invoice via an umbrella company which is based offshore 2. Umbrella preferably based inside Europe outside the EU, Northern Cyprus was very common 3. Umbrella company is owned by a trust 4. As a beneficiary of the trust you will be paid a 'loan' roughly every six weeks, since that's not a salary, right? 5. Loans are not taxable. 6. HMRC completely, totally aware of these arrangements. 7. Figure it out, everyone not on PAYE was in on it.
Via this arrangement you can often get 85%+ of your date rate returned to you as 'loans'. I know people who were on these schemes for a decade and dodged in the hundreds of thousands of pounds in personal income tax.
HMRC has sent letters offering to settle cases with 16,000 people, of the people I know I assume they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar for a couple of years, but overall are supremely better off for never having paid tax for the most productive times of their lives.
These are people who often came through state education, drive on state roads, use public services, in the UK which has a rich left/socialist history and have absolutely compunction whatsoever in shirking all and every responsibility they have to contribute in any way.
And as some people in this thread comment - "well, if I wanted to I could write a check to a charity". I heard that so many times from colleagues who had children at local schools, born in the NHS, earning £150k a year, for ten years, who had never pay a cent in tax.
Enjoy being poor plebs, tax is optional. I chose to pay mine.
In the end, some of these people are still my closest friends, we just have very different principles.
I'm relatively wealth in my peer group (disregarding the non-tax-payers who I'm clearly behind). I could be wealthier, but I'm not a fucking parasite.
The only thing you need to be an IT Contractor in London (other than some skills) is confidence.
I worked a number of contracts over ten years in the finance sector in London. I never had a client pull a contract on me, I always left on my terms. On average I lasted two years until I moved on. Major Retail, Funds management, Investment banking was my progression.
My background was Java (I work almost exclusively with Clojure now, and love it). Java was the language of business in London and I presume it still is. If you want to get a well paid gig in a smart office for a bank or funds management firm then Ruby is not your friend. Why was I motivated to move towards Investment Banking? Well, I'm competitive and it's the hardest market to crack, and it pays a premium. That's it. If you want to stay pure to one language or another and not use your rare skills for the best economic result for yourself that's another choice.
The market is huge, once you've got a recruiter who likes you you'll be offered work fairly continuously.
My contractor rate was roughly double what I would have earned permanent. The contractors I worked with were no better or worse than the permanent staff I worked with, they just had the confidence to strap on their contractor pants and go to work. That. is. all.
Advice like this article is useful enough I guess, but in reality you either have the confidence to go for it or not, and once you have you will never imagine why you waited so long (as long as you've got the ability to land work and impress people).
IR35? Just move every couple of years. Tax? Don't take the piss and HMRC will not bother you. Accountants? Have a crap one for a while and swap. Recruiters? Don't piss them about, realise they are all liars, but necessary. Find a good one and impress their clients. Timing? There's a couple of luls towards Xmas and the EOY, but there are always projects looking to spend money.
It is all confidence, you either do it or you don't, all this other crap follows.
I contracted for about 10 years in the UK, finance mostly. Had my own Ltd, took home about 65% of my day rate. No funny business, happened to move clients about every two years which helped for IR35.
Nothing more complicated than that. Yes that means I paid 35% tax, which is pretty much the equivalent I would have paid if I could have ever found anyone who would pay me my day rate as a salary.
1. I believe in a progressive tax system and public services 2. I don't believe in working for an umbrella based in Norther Cyprus which is owned by a Trust of which I am a trustee which pays me loans on a semi-regular basis of 80-88% of my day rate with absolutely zero tax paid by me.
HMRC is cracking down on IT Contractor loans anyway, and quite a few people are rightly being hit up for quite large amounts of tax.
If the UK public had any idea how many (roughly 50k contractors in the City) avoided paying so much tax (billions) while they were being mugged by PAYE there would be a total bun fight.
Me. I'm still wealthy, my dad was a teacher, my mum a stay-at-home mum. Went to state schools, drove on state roads, took the benefit of people who actually paid tax.
To all the "I could pay some of my extra money to a charity / local school" brigade. Sure, but you never did - you parasite. Feel free to thank me for providing all those public services for you if you like.
Also, this is an excellent summary / introduction to key clojure concepts, well done to the author.